FLORIDIANS HOPE VISIT TO ISRAEL HELPED MORALE

About 50 South Florida residents, part of a volunteer group from across North America, have returned from a two-week mission in Israel designed to boost morale among citizens there.

Organized by Volunteers for Israel, a New York-based group that annually sends about 2,000 people to Israel, the latest trip was arranged as a show of support during recent controversies surrounding Palestinian rioting in Israeli-occupied territories.

Typically, Volunteers for Israel sends groups of about 30 people to work in hospitals and on military bases and farms, but the group that arrived in Israel on March 15 numbered more than 700.

"When the media portrayed Israel as being a villain -- and they still do -- and with the morale of Israel at such a low ebb, something had to be done to show them not everybody believes the media," said Ben Dinkes, Florida coordinator for Volunteers for Israel.

Soon after the trip was announced, about 80 Floridians asked to participate. By the time word spread, more than 1,000 people had contacted the group's New York office.

The group included students and retirees, Jews and Christians, business executives and homemakers.

"It took me about a minute to decide to go," said Fred Polakoff, 67, a retired U.S. Army colonel from Hallandale. "My prime purpose was to show (the Israelis) that there were people out in the universe that still cared about them."

Polakoff spent the two weeks doing administrative work at a naval base in Haifa. Jewell Smith, 43, of Hollywood was assigned to an army base where she counted bolts and nuts, assembled cardboard boxes and cleaned lavatories.

"I told myself I would remember this when I am standing in front of my class," said Smith, a trainer for the Center of Management Development at Florida International University. "But there's a time and a place for everything."

Smith said she wanted to show the Israelis that "people here are not only willing to support them financially but also physically. We were received very positively. Anyone we met was willing to talk about their opinions and share their views."

Not all Israelis support their govenment's strong military response to Arab rioting, she said.

But everyone with whom the group met appreciated what the volunteers were doing, said David Rubin, a retiree from Deerfield Beach.

"The spirit of the people (in Israel) is good," Rubin said. "They see what's going on. They know how the world looks upon what is happening. The world has a biased opinion. A lot of it is distorted."

The Israelis also appreciated the work the volunteers were doing, said Seymore Cymet, 54, an advertising executive from Hollywood.

"In 2 1/2 weeks they weren't going to train us to do anything important," Cymet said. "So you had doctors, lawyers, gas attendants, and we all came there and did all the menial work they asked us to do."